Cloudy Skies
by Swordsoul2000
Summary: What if it had been Starscream who crashed in the ice? How would that effect Skyfire? AU SkyfirexStarscream rather dark, movieverse, with G1 elements
1. Chapter 1

Cloudy Skies

What if Starscream was the one who crashed? Would Skyfire still end up with the Autobots? Or would he join the Decepticons?

I do not own Transformers. Though I wouldn't mind owning Starscream and Skyfire plushies that could snuggle up together, heh heh….

//\\

"Sky……..h..lp….. go…down….."

The transmission was breaking up. Skyfire's circuits seized up in panic. "Starscream!" No, this couldn't be happening. Starscream was the best flier on Cybertron, if not that, than the best in the entire Science Corps. It was a fact of life. Starscream just Did. Not. Crash.

Yet that was exactly what seemed to be happening. Without a thought to his own safety, Skyfire gunned his engines, racing to his bondmate's last known location, mentally cursing the seeker's boundless curiosity. Why oh _why_, had Starscream chosen _this_ planetary pole to get curious about, they'd seen plenty on their exploratory missions. Why had he refused to accompany his partner, instead performing mindless analysis at the equator that a sparkless drone could do. Maybe if he'd followed Starscream, the smaller mech wouldn't be…. No. Don't think about that. Starscream _never_ crashed.

By the time Skyfire arrived at the pole, all he found was an impenetrable ice storm, forcing him to veer off. As soon as it passed, he flew every sensor sweep he could think of, crossing the pole time and time again, every sensor sweep punctuated by repeated, frantic hails. No response. No trace. No sign of Starscream. The residue from the storm combined with quickly refreezing ice had even concealed the location where his partner had gone down.

//\\

Skyfire returned to Cybertron in a daze; crashing badly due to lack of fuel. He didn't react to the medics repairing him, didn't taste the energon they forced on him. Nothing mattered. Nothing would matter ever again. He hadn't been able to find Starscream.

By the time the medics released him from their iron grip, he'd recovered enough mentally to go before the Expedition Council to see if it was possible to organize a retrieval mission. The request was turned down flat. The reason given was that with the recent energy crisis and political unrest, there was no fuel and personnel to spare for impossible missions. But what really got Skyfire's afterburners in a twist, was the Council's barely hidden glee at the prospect of Starscream's death. He'd known his love and the Council had never truly seen optic to optic, his lover's temper combined with his abrasive personality and genius had made him a snag in the Council's collective aft on more than one occasion, but to rejoice in his disappearance?

Not to mention, the council hadn't given him any more than a mild slap on the wrist for his carelessness with his council assigned partner and bondmate. That was the worst; it felt like they were _rewarding_ him for abandoning his bond-mate. No fines, no restrictions on data access, not even any personal leave so he could morn on his own in peace. He was only issued a mild, insulting reprimand in his file, and a new mission to leave on in two orns. With a new partner.

The last was the final straw. He angrily quit the Scientific Corps, ending up in the worst dive he could find, trying to drown his grief, guilt, and rage in high-grade. He woke up the next morning lying in a refuse pile with several serious dents and torn connections he couldn't remember getting. He picked himself up, and went back to his quarters to find an eviction notice on his door. If he'd been thinking rationally, it would have made sense: as he was no longer a member of the Scientific Corps, he was no longer entitled to stay in their housing. But he wasn't. At that moment, it was just another in a long series of grievances he intended to nurse for a long time.

As he packed up the few memento's of his life with Starscream, things like his lover's favorite data pad, or the holo he'd had made of their anniversary, something tore in Skyfire at how little there was left of his life with Starscream. Fliers as a rule didn't collect much in the way of objects, though Starscream had told Skyfire once about an old trine mate of his, who had collected stuff like a junkyard, but to see all his memories reduced to two small crates of knickknacks and awards with a few extra data pads on top, somehow seemed wrong.

A data pad was knocked to the floor by his restless pacing. As he bent to pick it up, he noticed it contained Starscream's latest pet project that he'd been working on in his spare time. If Skyfire could remember correctly, Starscream had been developing it as a favor for a colleague who now worked in Enforcement. The project was a way for Enforcement to take a mech into custody with a minimum of damage. The "null ray" as Starscream, had called it, worked by scrambling electrical connections so a unit was temporarily paralyzed when hit with a blast. According to the plans, the null ray should work the way it was intended, but as Skyfire studied the plans, he realized that with a minor modification, the paralysis wouldn't be temporary. One precise hit from the modified null ray, and a unit would need a medic's help simply move again, never mind transform. True, the design was complex, but he'd known how his love thought better than any engineer on Cybertron. It shouldn't be that difficult to build, even with the modification he planned. Best of all, if it worked, he'd have something of Starscream with him where ever he went.

//\\

Twenty vorns later Cybertron was on the verge of collapse. A faction of dissatisfied mechs calling themselves the Decepticons had started terror tactics on various installations, trying to force the Senate to give in to their demands. More and more mechs were requesting combat and self-defense upgrades and weapons. While Skyfire sympathized with the plight of the Decepticons, the number of casualties caused by their assaults was enough to sicken the former scientist. There was another faction forming, coming together of units who simply wanted to resist the Decepticons. Skyfire didn't completely agree with them either. Yes, the way the Decepticons were going after their goals was horrible, but that didn't mean the goals themselves were bad. Skyfire had never forgotten how his beloved bondmate had been slighted and scorned whenever possible by the Scientific Exploration Council, even how that hadn't ended even when Starscream was no longer there to defend himself. He could see how the Senators had energon to spare while Keon and Vos provinces were on the verge of a complete shutdown. Surely there was a way to address the issues the Decepticons were in arms about without the massive loss of life. The methods were the only thing about the Decepticons that bothered him, as far as their ideals went, Skyfire was completely supportive.

At least he had the means to defend himself, should he find himself in a firefight. The null rays had been completed, and fit so smoothly into his systems one would think that they had always been there. True, he'd had a slag of the time trying to get the things to work, particularly as Skyfire discovered that Starscream hadn't had the chance to complete the energy conversion matrix. The materials and installation had nearly cleared out all of his saved credits, also partly because he'd chosen to upload a combat/firefight program at the same time as the installation, reasoning that weapons didn't do much good if you didn't know how to use them. He'd never tested them outside of a firing range yet, but with the situation on the streets he didn't doubt he would get the chance.

Sometimes he wondered what Starscream would have made of the current situation. Primus knew that the seeker's fiery temperament would have taken passionately to the ideas of the Decepticons, to their calls of an end to discrimination to military models, to their calls for a new and better Cybertron. But would Starscream be as horrified as he was at the devastating loss of civilian life, of femmes and sparklings cut down with no chance to defend themselves? Would he fall for the rhetoric of the Decepticons, and join in the slaughter? Would he follow the hypocrisy of the Autobots, and preach freedom, peace, and tolerance while upholding a system that was crumbling under its own weight? Who knew?

Primus, he missed Starscream. Not only because he was his bondmate; but because complicated issues had a way of clarifying themselves when the seeker was around. Skyfire knew he had a tendency to get bogged down in the details; that was part of what had made them such a great team. He was the steady methodical plodder, able to find the holes in any argument, theory or plan that was put before him. Starscream was the flash of inspiration, the lightning bolt of creativity who realized things in an instant, always trying to skip several steps while trying to get to the finish. He would ground Starscream's more wild flights of fancy, calm him down whenever he began foaming at the jawplate about something, and make sure that the ideas worked on in the lab were actually feasible. Starscream in return would help him understand things that simply could not be figured out by logic, drag him out whenever he thought himself into a rut, and help him relax and unwind from a stressful orn in the lab. Skyfire remembered with a smile the time Starscream had literally kidnapped him out of the lab and had actually changed the door code until he felt that Skyfire had taken a sufficient break.

Abruptly, Skyfire was jolted out of his musings by the sudden whine of weapons charging. He looked, and saw a group of mechs standing in the street, weapons pointed at a residential complex. Almost without thought, he felt the null rays warming, ready to…what? Open fire in an open street? In the back of his CPU, he tried to guess what would make the Decepticons attack this residential complex, but hadn't arrived at the answer, before the entire group detonated their weapons simultaneously. The building disintegrated in a blast of heat and ash, the result of being hit with multiple fusion cannons.

Lying in the street, sucking air through his intakes do to the shock of the explosion, the answer to his earlier question hit Skyfire's CPU with the force of a flash grenade: Senator Windsong 's bondmate had a sibling, Quicktime, who lived in the complex; a sibling who, thanks to his job as a instructor in the nearby Institute of Energon Research, had been deep in recharge when the attack hit. There was no way any occupants of the complex could have survived.

Skyfire felt something in him snap. He'd known Quicktime, had seen him at several scientific conferences that he and Starscream had attended. A quiet mech, one with no political views whatsoever, a mech whose only wish was to teach younglings the mysteries of energon. While Skyfire and Starscream had focused their scientific pursuits on exploration and engineering, both of them had known intimately just how valuable Quicktime's work was, particularly in light of the energy crisis that was sweeping Cybertron. According to the latest papers Skyfire had read, Quicktime had been working on developing varieties of energon that would allow a mech to function on less energon for greater amounts of time.

Why would the Decepticons, if they were truly interested in the future well being of Cybertron, kill off a scientist whose work was invaluable towards their supposed long-term goal, simply because of a distant and insignificant political connection? Answer: they weren't. Skyfire could feel the part of him that recalled Starscream's idealism and passion for justice roar in outrage.

His null rays fired, golden energy lancing out from each shoulder, each shot landing dead center of a unsuspecting Decepticon chassis, right over the spark. They fell without a sound, and before any of their surprised comrades could react, Skyfire was already targeting again. Another pair of targets fell before the Decepticons pulled themselves together enough to flee. Part of Skyfire was relieved that they were gone, but yet another part of him, a part he had never known before, howled in disappointment.

He had just fired upon others who had not attacked him first. And surprisingly, it felt….good. It felt like a weight had suddenly fallen off his chestplate, one that he had never even noticed was there. He looked at the null rays; they had worked even better than he had anticipated in a real-fire situation. He shook his head ruefully. Starscream was even more of a genius than Skyfire had previously known. The first weapon system designed by the seeker, and it worked beyond Skyfire's wildest dreams.

The signature sirens of Enforcement snapped Skyfire out of his post-victory haze. He had to leave; Enforcement would be questioning every mech for klicks about what had happened at the destroyed complex. Due to the chaotic state of current affairs, Enforcement took a dim view of mechs who started fighting in the streets, for any reason. And if they learned that he had simply stood there and let the Decepticons destroy the building, and only started firing after the fact, combined with his unregistered null rays, and his current state of unemployment, he'd be lucky if the only thing they did was haul his aft into a cell. That's not to say that they would have an easy time of it, even _if_ he co-opereated. Being a big, bulky, mech had some advantages.

//\\

Several breems later Skyfire was forced to stop running as his actions finally caught up with him. He stumbled, leaning against the wall of a nearby building and his unsettled fuel lines threatened to pitch him to the ground

How could he have just fired upon fellow cybertronians? How? He wasn't programmed for war, if anyone had asked; he would have described himself as a pacifist. This was Starscream's type of behavior, not his; Primus knew the amount of times he'd had to pull the seeker of a mech unfortunate enough to dent his bond-mate's massive ego.

And to top it off, he'd tainted Starscream's final gift to do it. The null rays were designed as defensive weapons, designed to cause little to no permanent damage to the target. He'd twisted that, modified Starscream's original design and increasing the strength of the weapon until the target would lose the use of the affected limb until a skilled medic could be found, or die. As had happened to at least two of the Decepticons outside Quicktime's residential complex; he'd killed them before they had known the danger that they were in.

"Hey there," Someone was behind him. Without a thought Skyfire whirled, null ray raised. "Whoa, don't shoot!" the smaller mech protested, raising arms empty of weapons as if to ward off Skyfire's attack.

"What do you want?" Skyfire tried to keep the tremor out of his voice, but his neural circuits were on the fritz. He had to concentrate more than he liked to keep the null ray on target on the other mech's spark.

"I was jus' wonderin' if you were alright there, I mean, Primus, you look like complete slag." A disarming grin kept the words from being offensive.

"I assure you, I'm fine."

"Oh? Is that why your stabilizers are so shot to the Pit that you can't keep yourself upright?" the other mech never lost the grin, though a definite note of concern could be identified.

"I'm fine."

"Truthfully? I just happen to know the best medic in the whole sector, and it just so happens that his medbay is less than a kilck from here. I was already headed there myself, as a matter o'fact." He mech shifted his disarming grin to a hurt and wounded expression so ridiculous that Skyfire was forced to give a weak chuckle at it. "Yeah, that's it. Thought for a moment that the ole' Jazz-bot had lost his magic-touch! Ain't no bot that can resist it forever, not the boss-bot, Prowlie, Sunny, the Hatchet, or - wait an astrosec. What's your name?"

Despite his current misery, there was something about the mech that made Skyfire smile just a little bit. The newcomer – Jazz, was it? – almost reminded Skyfire of Starscream when the seeker had been caught in the grip of some new discovery. There was also something oddly refreshing about the mech's irrepressible good humor and cheer after several vorns of the fear, gloom, and paroinia that infested Cybertron all the way up to the atmosphere. It wasn't as if he trusted Jazz per say, only fools trusted strange mechs now, but it felt good to relax for a bit. Not to mention, none of the other mech's weapons were out.

There truly didn't seem to be any danger for the moment. Skyfire lowered the null ray, allowing his circuits to fold the weapon out of his way. "I'm Skyfire," was all he said as he allowed the smaller mech to help him up.

//\\

"What the Pit do you think you're doing here! I just repaired you an orn ago." Whatever Skyfire expected from the medic Jazz claimed to be the best in the sector, it wasn't this. The layout of the medbay was pretty standered, as was the equipment, though Skyfire noticed one wrench that had some suspicious-looking dents- but what was so off-putting to Skyfire, was the medic's utter lack of anything resembling a bedside manner.

Even more disconcerting, Jazz was acting like this was ordinary behavior from the medic, from the various cues Skyfire was picking up, like how the smaller mech did not react to the words and the ease by which he navigated around the medbay. Not to mention the complete lack of fear for the integrity of his armor as Jazz replied, "Well, let's see. I came here to pass on the Big Guy's latest orders, as well as update you on the latest 'Con activity," Jazz began.

"And him?" a jerk of the medic's head indicated Skyfire.

"I brought him along because he looked like he really needed to see a medic, he was practically keeled over in the street-"

Clang! The medic grabbed up the dented wrench and landed a solid hit on the upside of Jazz'z cranial unit. "Have you lost what little sense you had? I know you know better than to bring strange mech's here of all places! He could be a –"

"He's no 'Con." Jazz interrupted, suddenly all business. "I saw him drop 4 of them at their latest hit, scared off the rest of them before I could raise a finger. He figured out the target before I did. Obviously it seriously ticked him off."

Skyfire found himself staring at Jazz. Just how long had the smaller mech been following him? And judging by the way Jazz and the medic were talking, it looked like this place was Autobot HQ, or something close to it.

Not wanting to get involved with the Autobots any further, he let go of the wall where Jazz had kindly propped him against, intending to leave by the quickest route. And very nearly ended up on his aft for his trouble. The only reason he didn't fall, was for the surprisingly gentle hands of the medic that caught him, leading him gently, but irresistibly, to the nearest examination berth. By the time Skyfire realized what was happening and tried to resist, he was already lying on the berth, and when he tried to get up, was merely shoved back down again in a distracted manner. Jazz was openly snickering. "For all your talk, Ratchet, you can't ignore a patient in your med-bay." He ducked as the wrench went sailing toward his head again, the medic barely pausing in his scans.

Finally the medic stopped scanning and looked up to meet Skyfire's optics. "If you haven't already heard from the idiot over there," he jerked his head to indicate the downed and groaning Jazz, "My name is Ratchet. And you are….?"

"Skyfire. " he hesitated, then spoke what was on his mind. "And you are the Autobots."

Optic ridge raised, Ratchet exchanged a long look with Jazz, then turned back to Skyfire. "Is that a problem?"

Skyfire let a gust of air from his intakes. "If you asked me that question an orn ago, the answer would have been 'yes'. Now..." he trailed off, finally shaking his head. "…I don't know."

"Good enough." The medic grumped. He glanced around the medbay, irritated optics coming to rest on Jazz. "I'll talk to you later. Get out."

"but Ratchet…." Jazz's wheedling tapered off as Ratchet picked up another wrench. "Umm, I'll be going now!" and shot out the door.

"That's better." Bereft of other targets, the medic's gaze clamped on Skyfire. "I can repair you easily enough, but before I do, I have one question: how do I find your bond-mate."

Skyfire felt his fuel pump stutter. "You can't." he whispered, unable to speak louder.

"Why?"

"He's gone." An endless field of white….

"Gone how?"

"Gone. Offline. Extinguished. Gone forever."

"Given that you're still functional enough to sit in my medbay, I rather doubt that."

What?! Skyfire couldn't believe his audio sensors. What Ratchet was saying couldn't be true. Because if it was….

"…when one member of a spark-bond dies, the other follows soon after. I've seen it happen before…" Skyfire knew he should pay attention to what Ratchet was saying, but the words were drowned on the tidal wave of emotion shrieking Starscream is alive!!! The initial joy was followed hard on the heels by another wave of grief and guilt, for if Starscream was alive then…..

"…then he's… he's still there. I…I left him there." The tone was dazed; the words weren't more than the barest whisper of sound escaping his voice capacitor. "I-I…"

"Frag it." As he forced the flyer into stasis, Ratchet belatedly picked out the signs of bond-shock, a unique condition that only affected bonded pairs that had either been separated for a long period of time, or one of the pair was close to death. Slowly internal systems began to break down, slowing the self-repair programs and weakening connections. It became harder and harder to hold a charge, until some mechs suffering from it went offline from lack of energy. Bond-shock was extremely rare, in all his vorns of practice Ratchet had seen only one case of it: one time when Sideswipe had nearly slagged himself for good. While Ratchet was working on Sideswipe, his twin Sunstreaker had let himself go to the point where, when Sideswipe was ready to be released, Ratchet had to exchange twins in surgery. Obviously, Skyfire's case was less extreme than Sunstreaker's, but who knew how long the flier had been living with it. He wasn't in danger of dying, but that could change in a hurry. All in all, Skyfire had been doing quite well all things considered, at least until Ratchet had dropped his little bombshell on him.

"Slag it." The medic cursed again. There was no treatment for bond-shock. The only way to alleviate the symptoms was to re-unite the sundered pair, but Primus only knew where Skyfire's bond-mate was. Not only that, but judging by the other mech's words, Ratchet was dealing with a healthy helping of survivor's guilt on top of bond-shock to make the dilemma of finding a way to treat the mech all that more difficult.

Ratchet pounded a closed fist on a bulkhead. Primus, he hated being unable to help. The only thing he could do was try to keep up with the various glitches that were bound to be plaguing Skyfire's frame, hopefully long enough for Skyfire to get back to whatever out-of-the-way dustpit of a planet that Skyfire's bondmate had gotten himself lost on.

Slag it all, and Unmaker drag whatever's left to the Pit. Noisily gusting the air from his intakes, Ratchet went looking for a problem he could fix.

//\\

Owari

Chapter one

So, quite a different mech from the Skyfire we all know and adore, hmmm? The way I see Skyfire, is that he's a very practical idealist. He can see that the actions of the Decepticons don't match their ideals, but he can see the exact same thing with the Autobots. He will not, in this fic, ever fully trust them, to Skyfire, fighting with the Autobots is first and foremost a way to survive long enough to get Starscream back, and secondly, because he can see independently that the Decepticons need to be stopped.

Did anyone get the imagery in the title? In G1, Skyfire is pure white, a match for his purity uncorrupted by the war-torn mentality that marks all the others. But he's a cloudy grey now, at least mentally, with a strong sense of what he believes is right, even if that personal code doesn't match that of Optimus Prime.

By the way, I took that incident with the Twins from a brilliant story called "the Lost" by the Starhorse. Read it. Brilliant character studies of the twins through the eyes of other Autobots. Is there something wrong with me for liking Skyfire, Starscream, and the Twins, the 4 most screwed-up characters in the entire transformers universe, the best? Review and let me know.

Another chapter is in the works. Don't expect it to arrive anytime fast, this chapter took about a month to get down, and I have a lot of ground to cover in the next one. I'm thinking that the next chapter will cover his time with the Autobots, until his reunion with Starscream. I might write a third chapter, I might not.

You don't have to worry about me abandoning this fic. Second chapter is already started, so progress is slow, but steady! Please review and I might get more inspiration to write quicker.

PS, already, this fic is the longest I've ever done. Wish me luck!!

Needed to fix a few things, thus, the re-post. I'm almost finished typing chapter two, so it will be out in a few days. Sorry to get your hopes up!


	2. Chapter 2

Cloudy Skies

Chapter 2

From the skies, Skyfire mercilessly pounded all Decepticons in range with his null rays. Primus take it to the Pit, but it felt _good_ to release his constant sparkache at Starscream's absence on some 'Cons once in a while.

He'd made a few friends and acquaintances among the Autobots, not many, but a few. Jazz, because once Jazz 'adopted' you, you didn't have much of a choice. The Aerialbots were great for when he felt like flying those aerial stunts that you simply couldn't fly on your own. That was, when he could do stunts without memories of the intricate patterns he and Starscream would create choking him. He had a professional relationship with the other two scientists among the Autobot forces, but wasn't particularly close to either of them. And when the memories hit hard and fast, sometimes Sideswipe and Sunstreaker would sit and brood with him; the twins having the best idea out of all the Autobots of what he was going through.

That wasn't to say he was on good terms with the entire base: far from it. While he respected Ratchet, and was on nodding terms with the Autobot 2IC, Prowl, but whenever Optimus Prime launched into one of his "for the common good" speeches; Skyfire had to leave the room to avoid spewing his tanks in disgust, or risk having a base full of Autobots on his aft for ripping their commander limb from limb. And don't get him started on that trigger-happy weapons-specialist, Ironhide; that was another mech around whom Skyfire had to clamp down _hard_ on his temper to avoid aiming a null ray in the black mech's direction.

But for all his differences with the Autobots, he knew that this was the right side for him in this war. As the war escalated, going from street-fights to full-out-battles, so did Decepticon cruelty. Once he saw a trine of seekers, reminding him painfully of Starscream, level an entire residential sector. Who knew how many sparks were extinguished in that one attack alone? When the Senate had collapsed shortly after he'd joined the Autobots, Skyfire had half-expected the fighting to settle down, at least a little bit, as the corruption of the Senate was at least one of the main grievances of the Decepticon cause. If anything, the fighting intensified, despite the fact that Skyfire knew that Optimus Prime had sent a message to Megatron for possible talks. Base scuttlebutt said that Megatron's reply had been something about that they could talk when all Autobots were in the Matrix and had been punctuated by laser fire.

And foolish ideals aside, Prime was a good commander. He kept his cool under pressure, and listened to suggestions even if they came from outside his command team. Also, when he made a decision, his subordinates could trust that it had been made with all possible information.

What was he doing, reflecting like this in the midst of battle? Skyfire lost himself again in the whine of laser fire, the scream of his null rays, the crash of exploding cluster bombs, and the boom of cannons.

///\\\

All too soon, the battle was over, and Skyfire was subjected to his usual post-battle examination and verbal flaying by Ratchet. Yeah, he fragging knew that he was more susceptible to injury than the other Autobots, and that his self-repair systems were not operating at full capacity. But that didn't mean that he liked being treated as if he had less sense than a processor-fried glitch. That was the Twins, whenever they got it into their heads to try some Jet Judo. Or Wheeljack.

Speaking of the insane inventor, the only reason he'd escaped the medbay was due to a timely explosion from the glitch-head's lab. Avoiding the rec-room, Skyfire never felt sociable after getting out of the Hatchet's clutches, he made his way to one of the upper observation rooms. Unmaker take it, he _hated_ it when Ratchet tried to coddle him. Not that the other Autobots often accused Ratchet of all mechs of coddling, but it was the only word that fit. What Ratchet just didn't' get, was that he was addicted to combat buzz, the processor high that only came when energy blasts were coming thick and fast, and the rush that only came from mid-air duels. It was a way to forget, to pour all his grief, guilt, and sparkache into battle so he didn't have to feel it anymore, at least for a little while.

Optics on the sky, Skyfire consciously forced himself to relax. The longer he stayed with the Autobots; Skyfire had found that he'd been taking on more and more of Starscream's personality traits, which unfortunately included his bondmate's touchy temper. When he'd told Ratchet what was happening, the medic had told him not to fight it, as the more of his bondmate he could keep with him, staved off the worst of the bondshock, the same reason Ratchet had given when he praised Skyfire's decision to use the null rays as his primary weapon. Also, the seeker's aggressive temperament was much more suited to war, than the peaceful scientist he had been.

But for all of Starscream's temper, all of the best efforts of all the Autobots wasn't enough to defeat the Decepticons. It was obvious to a glitch that the Decepticons were taking Cybertron. In the past vorn alone, Autobot controlled territory had shrunk drastically. And while the Autobots still controlled the All-Spark, Megatron had recently made it his goal to possess it; launching raid after raid to capture it, leaving critical installations undefended in pursuit of his obsession. Exactly why Megatron had decided he needed the All-Spark, Skyfire didn't know, but perhaps the Decepticon warlord had realized that the All-Spark was the only way to re-populate Cybertron after the short-sighted decision to massacre the femmes.

There was something brewing in the Command Team: something big. Skyfire didn't know all the details, but knew enough that he could guess at the final shape of the plan. For the past few vorns, the Command Team had been pushing for a functional space-bridge. As the only one left on the planet was in very bad shape, the Command Team had ordered all scientists to give repairing the space-bridge their top priority, even though Wheeljack still found time to tinker and blow things up in his lab every few orns.

Taking the weight of Decepticon advance, along with Megatron's obsession with the All-Spark, and the Command Team's push for a functional space-bridge as soon as absolutely possible, the conclusion was obvious. Megatron wanted the All-Spark. The Autobots had been playing 'keep-away' for as long as possible, but were being backed into a corner. The only way to keep the All-Spark out of Decepticon hands was to get it off Cybertron via the space-bridge. If a flier such as Skyfire or one of the Aerialbots tried to take it off planet, they'd be shot down before they could leave the atmosphere.

Whatever was going to happen would happen soon. The space-bridge was ready, or at least as ready as it could get without testing it, testing that couldn't happen as the instant they activated the space-bridge, the Decepticons would be down on their collective afts. Skyfire wouldn't recommend sending a mech through the space-bridge, not without a few test runs to make sure the device didn't crush it's passenger on the way through. But just because a mech couldn't go through, but something like the Cube shouldn't have any trouble whatsoever. The entire base was tense, tension and anticipation leaking down from the Command Team even to those mechs who weren't in the know. It was only a matter of time before something happened….

///\\\

Confined to the medbay, strapped to a berth by the Hatchet himself, Skyfire could only swear. Silently swear, as Ratchet had off lined his vocal processor so the sound of his constant curses didn't distract the medic as he frantically worked to save Bumblebee, a young bot who'd endured Megatron's personal questioning as to the location of the All-Spark, and who had refused to utter a sound. He'd been nearly dead when they'd found him, and from what Ratchet was muttering, his vocal processor couldn't be salvaged. The bright-yellow-bot had bought enough time for the space-bridge to be activated, though he hadn't delayed Megatron long enough for the Cube to make a clean getaway, the Decepticon warlord arriving just as the Cube was being transported, and in a desperate snatch, had been tossed to the far side of the galaxy with the Cube. Also, Skyfire had been right that the space-bridge hadn't been up to transporting mechs, not to mention two objects at once. The space-bridge that Skyfire and his colleagues' had worked so hard on repairing was now so much scrap metal. Any attempts to go after the All-Spark and Megatron, would have to go the long way.

That was bad enough. While Skyfire had taken a few hits in the struggle to eject the Decepticons from the base, there was no call for the Hatchet to round up the _Dinobots of all mechs_ to kidnap him from the rec-room and bring him to the medbay. Not only that, as Ratchet was occupied with Bumblebee, his assistant First Aid had seen to Skyfire, running the usual post-battle scans, and fixing the damage, most of it small glitches that medics usually left to a mech's self-repair systems. He was completely repaired, all he was waiting on was Ratchet's personal approval before he could be released; yet another way in which the manic medic was overprotective of him. All he could do at the moment was wait, seethe, and silently blister Cybertron's thin atmosphere a darker blue.

///\\\

Less than an orn after Skyfire was released from Ratchet's clutches, he was summoned to a meeting with the entire Command Team. Entering the indicated conference room, he eyed the mechs already assembled, gauging their emotional status and trying to get a sense of what the meeting was about from that. Ratchet was scowling, that was of no help. Prowl was his normal impassive self. But Jazz was fidgety, as was Ironhide. Add to that Optimus Prime looking stern and serious instead of being his usual –bleeding-spark-self, and Skyfire knew that whatever was going down, was serious. Deadly serious. Optimus Prime inclined his head in greeting. "Skyfire. Please have a seat."

"I'd prefer to stand." Like the Pit he'd sit down.

"Suit yourself." The Autobot leader waited a beat, and then went on. "I'm assuming you're aware of the events that occurred on base 4 orns ago?"

"Yes."

"Can I assume that you can extrapolate on probable Decepticon movements as a result of these events, correct?"

Skyfire didn't know what to say. His analytical skills had not gone unnoticed by Prowl, using him to refine both strategies and tactics until they were nearly flawless. The 2IC had actually been impressed with the flyer's ability to hone in on the logical conclusion to a situation, even when, or especially when, the actions they were trying to predict, were not based on logic. Skyfire secretly blamed Starscream's influence for that.

"Can you give us your summation?" Prowl asked evenly.

"Of course. For the moment, the Decepticons are likely to be in disarray. Megatron was too paranoid to appoint a true successor in the event he fell, so now they are scrambling for leadership. However, neither of the two candidates available are particularly viable. Shockwave has alienated most of his troops with his reliance on his drones. Regardless of that, he has a slightly better chance of seizing power than does Soundwave. As Jazz likely knows," here he indicated the special opts leader, whose division included the few spies that had managed to infiltrate Decepticon forces, "the only mechs that will serve under Soundwave are his own cassettes; as useful as his telepathic abilities are as an underling, they are a liability to his command. However, Soundwave will not meekly fall under Shockwave's command; the rivalry between the two is far too strong for that. Megatron only tolerated their discord because it amused him to keep the two at each other's throats, and it prevented both of them from gathering enough supporters to overthrow him. I estimate that they will take at least a vorn, to resolve the leadership issue, and only then they will send a force after both Megatron and the Cube. Sir." The added level of formality was an extra dig at the Autobot commander who preferred an informal atmosphere, a dig that reminded Optimus Prime that he, Skyfire, only followed his commands because he happened to lead the Autobots, and gave his respect only to that position. Judging by the resigned and slightly exasperated expression on Prime's face, the extra message was received.

"Do you have any recommendations as to our course of action?" despite how tired he might be with Skyfire's little games, the Autobot leader's voice was level.

"Sir?" Skyfire was puzzled. Why was Optimus Prime asking for _his_ contribution? Wasn't that the job of the Command Team, to lead the different sections and to advise the leader as to his course of action? So why was he asking Skyfire, to give him advise?

"Prowl has informed me of your skills in situational analysis. He says that he has only rarely been able to find the slightest flaw in your scenarios, and that you prove to be correct much more often than not. Your recommendations if you please."

Skyfire hesitated for a few beats. 'Was Prime serious?' was the thought running through his mind. A beat later he realized that yes, the Autobot commander truly wanted his analysis. Now was obviously the time to share not only with Prowl, but with the entire Command Team what his spark had been telling him ever since Mirage had first reported Megatron's interest in the All-Spark.

He locked optics with Optimus Prime and said, "Take your focus off Cybertron."

"WHAAT?" Ironhide roared, surging up from his seat. A null ray pointed at his helm, combined with acid glares from both Ratchet and Prowl, induced the weapons specialist to sit down and be quiet. "Optimus Prime stared at Skyfire in open shock. "Are you suggesting that we abandon Cybertron?"

"Essentially, yes."

"Why the slag would you say that!!" yelled Ironhide, too worked up to settle down.

"Because we've lost the planet. Megatron's latest assault proved to the Decepticons that they can get in here any time they please. The only way we have a chance of survival is if we take the war off planet."

"Why do you say that." Prowl was the only mech in the room remaining calm in the wake of Skyfire's pronouncement.

"The instant Megatron became obsessed with the All-spark, the focus of the war shifted. This war is no longer about who controls Cybertron, but who controls the cube. If we stay here, as soon as the Decepticons chose a new leader we'll be wiped out. Our priority at the moment is to recover the Cube. We'll deal with recapturing Cybertron once we regain control of the Cube, or at least make sure that the Decepticons never get their hands on it."

There was a breem of silence. Skyfire knew that the Autobot leader was going over his words, looking at the plan he'd put together from every possible angle, trying to find a hole in Skyfire's argument. There wasn't one, much as Optimus Prime might have wished there was.

"How do you suggest we proceed?" the words came out heavily, the cost to get them out apparent. Right now, Skyfire was grateful he was not a Prime, not the leader of the Autobots. In a twinge of sympathy, he kept his report brief and to the point.

"Send out a small strike force after the Cube. Include at least one member from all 4 sections; make it the most well-rounded team you can. Also, make sure all members can stand up to heavy fire, they'll be facing Megatron at least, and Primus only knows who else the Decepticons will send after them. Make sure at least one high-ranking member of the Command Team remains behind to co-ordinate out retreat from Cybertron, and organize the remaining Autobot forces against those Decepticons that don't go after the strike team."

"Why only send a small strike force if the Cube is our top priority?" that was Ratchet, automatically calculating how bad injuries would be on the mission, and if they would need his personal touch or not.

"The smaller the squad, the less chance the Decepticons don't realize what's happening before it's too late."

The members of the Command Team exchanged speaking glances, and then Skyfire was dismissed while they discussed his words. At one point he thought he heard Ironhide's voice through the bulkhead, but dismissed it. His role in the matter was over. Let the Command Team take it from here; he had a patrol to fly.

//\\

Several orns later in his quarters, Skyfire was gaping at his superior. "I'm sorry, I must have misheard you." There was no way he'd heard that right…

Prowl didn't look amused. "No, you heard me just fine. I want you to join the strike force you suggested to Optimus."

If Skyfire didn't know better, he'd have thought that calm, rational, ruled by his logic processor Prowl had gone mad. The Twins, Sideswipe in particular, would be delighted in the knowledge that they had finally succeeded in their self-appointed mission. Too bad for Skyfire, it couldn't have come at a worse time. Slowly, so there was no possible way Prowl could misunderstand what he was saying, Skyfire repeated, "You want me, reluctant Autobot and the closest mech on base bar Sunstreaker to a Decepticon, to go on a mission that will make or break the survival of the Autobot faction as a whole?"

"Yes." Put that way, it did sound ridiculous.

"Why in the name of Primus do you think I should go!"

"The team will need air support-"

"So send a seeker, Silverbolt, or another Aerialbot!"

"The seekers don't have the skills required for this mission, and the Aerialbots move as a unit. I believe that you stressed the need to keep the numbers down if at all possible. If I may continue?"

"As if I can stop you!"

"As I said, the team will need air support. They will need a tactician. And they will need someone who can track the probable paths the Cube might have taken from the co-ordinates recovered from the space-bridge. You fulfill all of these requirements." The other positions in the strike force had already been filled, leaving Skyfire to be the only remaining holdout. If Skyfire didn't know that Prowl was emotionless, he would have thought he heard regret in his superior's voice. Skyfire's problems with the Autobot cause were a matter of record, as well as his problems with Optimus Prime and Ironhide in particular. The flyer's absence from public assemblies was a fact of life on base, and Prowl couldn't help but remember the last time Skyfire and Ironhide had run into each other without supervision: the weapons specialist had injured one of the Skyfire's wings, and a well-aimed null ray had fried Ironhide's battle computer. As traumatizing as the loss of flight was for a flyer, Prowl couldn't help but thinking that Ironhide had come off worse in that little encounter.

Skyfire's optics narrowed at the last point of Prowl's. "Give me the co-ordinates." was all the flyer responded. Optic-ridge raised at Skyfire's tone, Prowl transmitted them, glad he'd had the foresight to download them before coming to Skyfire's quarters. After a few breems of silence, while Skyfire was obviously absorbed in trajectory analysis, Prowl was about to leave, when Skyfire suddenly and completely exploded.

"You Pit-slagging, processor-fried GLITCH!!! How DARE you use my bondmate to manipulate me in this way!!!"

"Skyfire, what are you talking about!" To Prowl's knowledge, Skyfire had never thrown an honest-to-Primus tantrum like this before. Yes, the flyer was prickly and impassive by turns, but one of the reasons Prowl had stolen Skyfire from Ratchet and Silverbolt, was because of the flyer's seeming ability to maintain an emotional even keel. True, Skyfire did make you feel it when you crossed him, but his usual methods of recrimination was to deliver a cutting and sarcastic chew-out that reduced the target to a quivering bundle of wires on the deck plates, or a random blast or two from his null rays quickly taught other mechs their lesson. This, this outburst was so different, that Prowl didn't know what to do, which was the most disconcerting of all for the stoic mech.

"One of the probable locations of All-Spark, one that comes up in 30% of the simulations I've run so far, is where I lost Starscream." There was something in Skyfire's voice, something that Prowl had never heard in all the vorns the flyer had fought with the Autobots. Skyfire, icy, precise Skyfire, the top scientist in the Autobot army, and the only mech Prowl had ever found who came close to his talent for strategy, and whose advise had never lead the Autobots astray, was grieving. And frankly, this was the first Prowl had ever heard of Skyfire having a bondmate. It had never come up, as none of the other Autobots paired off on base had taken the step to bond, unless you counted the Twins.

As Prowl watched, Skyfire eventually calmed down to the point where he was almost acting like his usual self. Still, Prowl kept an optic on his subordinate, unable to view him the exact same way as before the outburst. Prowl couldn't help the tiny flinch, when Skyfire asked in an almost too-calm voice, almost violently calm after the rage of less than a breem ago, "So who else is going?"

"Jazz, Optimus, Ironhide, Ratchet, and Bumblebee are going." Prowl watched Skyfire's reactions to the list carefully. As glad as he was to be able to return to business, the list did include the two mechs Skyfire had the biggest problem with in the entire Autobot army.

His fears were misplaced. "Hmm," Skyfire mused. "I can't find a fault with the lineup as far as skills go, though sending nearly the entire Command Team is worrisome. The flyer paused with his analysis, then continued. "And isn't Bumblebee still recovering in the med-bay?"

"Yes," replied Prowl, "But Ratchet estimates that he'll be fit for at least light duty by the estimated departure time, and that he will be able to complete any further repairs en-route. Or at least that was one of the excuses he made to be put on the team."

"And the Hatchet wants to make sure that my systems don't give out on me without warning." Skyfire muttered to himself. He could see that Prowl was curious about what he'd meant, but the tactician was too impassive to be inclined to ask questions. That was just as well, for Skyfire was in no mood to answer any about just why Ratchet would think that way.

Nodding sharply, Prowl was on his way out the door, when Skyfire forced himself to speak up again. "When is the scheduled time of departure, and where is the gather point for those leaving?" the question caught Prowl with his hand on the activation switch for the door mechanism.

"I presumed from your outburst, that you weren't going."

"You presumed wrong. If there is the slightest chance that I will be able to find Starscream, than I have to take it. Where, and when."

"The only ship suitable for tracking the All-Spark, that is small enough to only require a skeleton crew, is the Ark. North Hanger, 20 orns from now. More details will be relayed to you when it is almost time to go."

"Understood."

With that, Prowl left, leaving Skyfire alone. Alone, with only the company of the memories of a seeker fast enough to make the skies scream, and endless shades of white…..

Owari

Till chapter 3

I know!!! I promised that Skyfire would reunite with Starscream in this chapter, and it didn't happen. :ducks Ratchet's favorite wrench: I totally swear that that will happen in the next chapter!!! Even if I have to extend the chapter and keep you all waiting, Skyfire will find Starscream sometime in chapter 3.

I'm sorry that I might have made Skyfire some sort of a super-mech in this chapter. I mean, top Autobot scientist, Prowl's strategic advisor blagh, blagh, blagh. I actually have a reason for presenting him this way. The reason that I've made Skyfire the top scientist, is that Wheeljack keeps blowing things up, and Preceptor seems to be too scatterbrained to get all that much done. As for Prowl asking Skyfire for strategic advice, he was able to analyze both Decepticon and Autobot motivations in chapter 1, plus, I think that some of his scientific training would come in handy for analyzing potential consequences of events. I mean, that scientists are always trying to predict what will happen in their experiments, so Skyfire is just applying those skills to another field.

Chapter 3 is in the works, and will mostly follow my version of what happens in the movie, which means I'm going to try to save Jazz,(I haven't gotten to that scene yet, but I don't want Skyfire to lose one of his friends) and might have Starscream being the plaything of Sector 7 along with Megatron.

Reviews make me work harder! Keep them coming and thanks for your support so far!!!


	3. Chapter 3

Cloudy Skies

Chapter 3

//\\

With a sluggish feeling to his fuel pump, Skyfire watched the planet grow larger in the view screen. Somewhere down there, Starscream was waiting under Primus only knew how many tons of ice. Out of all the planets in all the nearby sectors, why for the love of Primus did the Cube have to land on this planet?

The search for the Cube had been trying for the flyer. In the close confines of the Ark, he couldn't escape when Ratchet's concern became too stifling, or when Optimus Prime decided to give another speech on the "nobility of the Autobot cause," or some such slag. The close quarters had even eroded his tolerance for Jazz's formerly amusing antics. And don't get him started on Ironhide. Optimus Prime had to resort to ensuring that the flyer and the weapons-specialist were never assigned to the same shift in order to prevent the two from killing each other.

Frankly, at the moment, the only mech on board that Skyfire could stand was Bumblebee. If Skyfire could be honest with himself, part of the reason was because of the yellow mech's still slagged vocal processor, which stubbornly refused to be fixed, despite all of Ratchet's best efforts. Despite, or perhaps because of, his difficulty communicating verbally, Bumblebee was an excellent listener, listening without judgment as Skyfire poured out his feelings about Starscream, the Autobots, and the war in general during the long watches they shared.

But that period of comradeship was about to end. In about 2 orns, both Skyfire and Bumblebee would be dispatched to the planet, there to split up and search for clues as to the location of the All-Spark. Skyfire could see the logic of it: Bumblebee's scout function made him ideal for teasing out information, while Skyfire's flight capabilities added to his science scanners, made him the logical choice to track down the Cube's energy signature. To say nothing of the fact that they were the only members of the team not a part of Autobot High command.

Skyfire didn't mind the assignment. To be honest, it gave him an opportunity to surreptitiously search for Starscream, as he'd been doing from the Ark's less-than-ideal scanners, at least when Jazz hadn't wandered out onto the bridge to relieve Skyfire's non-existent boredom.

'Soon,' he mentally sent to his trapped love, still entombed beneath frozen depts. 'I'll find you again soon.'

//\\

Parked on the runway of a human military base, Skyfire reviewed the events that had happened so far since landing on the planet. If his memory banks hadn't told him he'd been to the planet before, he honestly wouldn't have recognized it. The last time he'd been there, there had only been the slightest hints of the possibility of organic life, now it swarmed across its surface, teeming in great masses around him.

Upon atmospheric entry, he'd made sure to run a sweep over both planetary poles, and failed to find anything metallic in large enough quantities that would account for the mass of a mech Starscream's size, not to mention Megatron's mammoth bulk. So if odds were, they had been discovered and being kept somewhere hopefully where they wouldn't cause problems. At least they didn't have to worry about if Megatron had managed to find the Cube and leave the planet with it. The fact that the dominant species was still alive and flourishing was proof enough that Megatron hadn't achieved yet achieved his goal; the Decepticon warlord would have destroyed them to the last as an afterthought in his victory celebrations. In between acquiring alternate modes (Bumblebee had made questioning sound when he'd seen the obviously military plane Skyfire had chosen) both he and the scout had been sifting through the local information networks for any trace of Megatron or the All-Spark. Careful research had tagged an E-bay page featuring an odd construction of wire and glass that featured cybertronian co-ordinate characters, co-ordinates that Skyfire guessed to be in the format used solely by the larger battle cruisers, such as Megatron's alt form. An additional search identified the owner of the webpage as one Samuel James Witwicky, a human of about 17 solar cycles of age. Yet another search had revealed the presence of a Captain Archibald Witwicky, who ended up in a human enclosure for the insane, speaking about "Ice men." That meant a human had found either Megatron or Starscream, possibly both. The fact that the Decepticon leader was literally on ice didn't mean the Autobots didn't have to move fast to locate the Cube. Who knew when the Decepticons would follow them and land directly on their afts?

Right now, he was blending into the background of a human military airbase, just one of many transports sitting on the runway. Bumblebee was undercover as well, though the scout had a more complicated assignment to complete. Once Sam Witwicky connection to the Cube and Megatron had been established, Bumblebee had been ordered to scan the most inconspicuous alt form he could find, and to insert himself into the Witwicky family unit, to look after them from there and Sam in particular. Once he was in place, Primus would shake hands with Unmaker in friendship before a single hair on one of Bumblebee's charges was harmed, even if Megatron himself threatened.

Skyfire snarled to himself, audios silenced so as not to alert the humans to his presence. Slag it, but sitting silently on the runway was so slagging boring!! Right now, he could even go for taking a load of stinky, smelly, humans somewhere to stink up his interior while, of all aggravations, he had to let a human think he was controlling him. He'd been sitting here with nothing to do for 3 fragging orns.

Oh what the slag. Nothing was happening, no Decepticons were anywhere in the system. He was overdue for a good long recharge; his systems were beginning to feel the strain. Besides, Jazz would give him a heads up the instant a Decepticon signal so much as bleeped on the Ark's scanners. Just a little nap….

//\\

Skyfire woke to explosions, to the white-hot glare of EMP shells. Hurriedly snapping his sensors on, he was horrified to discover a Decepticon methodically ripping the base he was sheltering at, to rubble. As he threw himself into the transformation process, Skyfire spared a thought that somemech on the Ark was going to get a null ray in a sensitive spot for not warning him before a Decepticon landed right slagging on his aft. That looked to be Blackout. Good. He'd been meaning to pay him back for nearly shooting Air Raid out of the sky a while back, the result of which had made even Silverbolt and Skydive snappish and irritable with worry over their gestalt-mate, and it was Skyfire had had to deal with the brunt of the normally steady Air Commander's temper over something as trivial as a report only slightly delayed by his research on the space-bridge. And it looked like the slagger fancied himself a flyer with that alt mode design; guess he'd have to teach a small lesson in manners….

Null rays powered up, he blasted Blackout in what he hoped was a vulnerable spot, though he kept an optic out for Scorponick. The pit-slagging drone Blackout liked to cart around had made things dicey on more than one mission. Not that the drone's weaponry was that advanced, but the slagger was so pit-dammed slippery that it was hard to land a decisive hit- don't turn away from me you piece of Slag!!!

Taking Blackout's momentary distraction as the opening it was, Skyfire landed a solid double hit that toppled the Decepticon over, hopefully stunning him. Ripping his enemy over, Skyfire fired point-blank into his foe's spark.

As his enemy stilled in death, Skyfire finally took a good look around him, finding himself alone in the wreckage of what had been a thriving air base. Blackout was dead, good. Scorponick had escaped, bad. Not to mention, there were some human survivors who had for some reason or another had attracted Blackout's attention, Skyfire had to find out why exactly it was, and if it was something that might alert the human governments that representatives from another planet had crashed their war in their world, possibly do something about it. Who knew? Maybe this could be the break he was looking for, maybe the humans he had saved could at least lead him to the All-Spark.

//\\

By the time he had determined exactly which life-signs were the humans he wanted, they had already made it to a small human settlement just under a tera-klick from the base (he still hadn't fully converted his scanners to the local distance measurements yet). Not wanting to reveal himself to the humans, he found a hiding spot that, while out of human visual range, was still close enough for his scanners to eavesdrop on their commentary. Checking to be sure he had the correct language downloaded, Skyfire earnestly listened in. Apparently, two of them were having a mild disagreement about something, something that was revealed after a minute or so of conversation, to be him.

" –man, I'd say the white robot was on our side, you get me?" Score one for the human. He'd figured out something obvious.

"What makes you say that, Fig?"

"Look, who knows how long it sat there parked on our runway, and never made a move? Then when the Big Black Killer robot comes and start blowing us to Kingdom Come, it saves our Asses. Did a sight of a lot more damage to that thing than we could." Again, the obvious. Were all the humans so dense?

"Like you said, no telling how long it was on our doorstep. Why would it hide if its intentions were friendly? And why did it wait to start beating on its friend, rather than going after it from the start. There's no telling exactly what it wants." Well, well, well. It appeared that at least one of the humans had a functioning processor, and was capable of seeing past the obvious. Nowhere in the universe was free help truly free; there was always at least some reason or price behind it. Good to see that a human was aware of that.

"But you got to admit that the White guy saved our sixes." Sixes? A quick search of the online dictionary located the word, located under the category of 'slang'. 'Sixes', a reference to the muscled appearance of a male's abdominal wall, used as a euphemism for 'lives'. Jazz would love the saying.

"Who's to say we wouldn't have got away from the Black one without your White Savior."

"After it focused on us, you in particular, after you took that picture? The way that thing wanted us down after that? I don't think so." A picture? Visual evidence, which would confirm a Cybertronian presence on the planet? Not good. No wonder Blackout had given Skyfire his opening. No doubt whoever was commanding the Decepticon forces on earth had stressed secrecy if at all possible. But why send Blackout out for information? He wasn't even an infiltrator, but a frontline warrior. Skyfire doubted that busting up a military base counted as subtle in the least. But the Decepticons did have very few mechs suited to recon missions, no doubt influenced by Megatron's preference for single-minded brutality to accomplish any given task. While that strategy did work from time to time, often it caused more problems than it solved.

And one such problem was before him now. Due to Blackout's attack, he'd violated his cover, and revealed himself to humans. At least Scorponick hadn't interfered….

Just as the name crossed his processor, the drone burst from beneath the sands and began to raise a panic among the humans, most of who appeared to be civilians. The only soldiers looked to be the base survivors, though a few others apparently knew how to use the primitive weapons most commonly used on the planet. Skyfire began to power up his null rays, only to power them down again when he realized he couldn't interfere. Unlike the last time, there were humans all around the battle site, and he couldn't take the chance that a null ray could hit one of them. A precise hit could kill a mech in one hit, who knew what even a glancing blow could do to the more fragile natives. Facing Scorponick, arguably the slipperiest drone Shockwave had designed, there would be no way for him to avoid native casualties.

Not to mention, this was a good opportunity to evaluate exactly how the humans could defend themselves against others of his kind. And they were proving themselves admirably. While the drone had taken a few down from sheer surprise, now that they knew what the danger was, were putting up an effective defense despite the pitiful quality of their weapons. More humans were being hurt by falling debris than by the drone's direct attacks. Still, the standoff couldn't continue. Sooner or later, the humans wouldn't be able to maintain their defense.

Though it was possible that they were using the communication link that had been left open throughout the battle to summon reinforcements. Skyfire rather doubted it. The link was almost painfully unsecured; the youngest sparkling wouldn't have the least bit of trouble cracking it. Why trust important information to a line so open that public broadcast signals back on Cybertron, which any youngling could crack with ease, were more tightly encoded?

A blip on his radar warned him of an approaching aircraft, likely an unmanned drone from the only other base in the area, the one that Blackout had left alone. Thankfully, Skyfire was able to trace its flight path and move out of range of its sensors before he could be detected. Shortly after the drone passed the battle overhead, two planes followed. Not multipurpose transport planes such as Skyfire, but true military jets. Just the sight of them brought a lump to Skyfire's fuel pump as he could very easily picture he beloved seeker choosing something like them when the seeker chose a new alt form.

Even Skyfire from his position well back from the battle could tell that the first efforts of the planes were a complete waste of time, fuel, and firepower. They had used the exact same weaponry as the troops on the ground, only changing the elevation of the attack. Even Wheeljack knew better than to try the same thing twice if he was looking for different results, or different explosions in the glitch-head's excuse for a lab.

A new salvo opened up, using an entirely different type of shells. The heat of the casings burned right through Scorponick's armor, detonating inside the protective coating. When the bombardment let up, Skyfire caught the faintest signal that was the drone retreating under the sands, tail severed. It was dead either way. If it kept movement to a minimum, it could last for orn, perhaps two or three depending on how much energy it had expended in combat, and if it kept movement to a minimum before it went permanently offline without a 'parent' energy supply. And with Blackout dead… well it would be a kinder end than the drone really deserved, pit-slagging piece of scrap metal.

There was nothing more he could do here. Right now, he had to report in to Ark, and make sure that those onboard knew that the Decepticons had arrived. Likely they would know, but given the way Blackout had gotten the drop on him, Skyfire couldn't count on it. He had to report in to the Ark, as well as check in with Bumblebee, who knew what was happening in the young Autobot's area of the world. Firing his alt form's engines, Skyfire flew off.

//\\

In flight, Skyfire beamed a message up to the Ark and gave Ratchet (who was on duty) a brief summery of what events had occurred on earth to his knowledge. When he had to admit that he'd fought and taken out Blackout, the medic's outraged harangue made Skyfire glad that he was giving his repot over a comlink. Without a doubt, he'd be ducking Ratchet's favorite wrench about now if he were faceplate to faceplate with the medic. The distance, coupled with the same idiocy that had inspired him to actually request an antisocial seeker as his principal exploration partner, and the suicidal stubbornness that had allowed the same seeker to actually provoke bullies at the Academy, was what allowed Skyfire to actually retort back to Ratchet that if those on the Ark had warned him about the Decepticon presence in the solar system, he wouldn't have been awoken right out of recharge by Blackout's attack. He'd had no choice but to fight by that point.

While Skyfire knew that Ratchet would find a way to make him pay for his lip, he honestly couldn't give a slag. He simply wanted the Cube _found_, so he could locate Starscream. The seeker was _so close_; Skyfire could feel it in his spark.

Before Ratchet signed off, the medic made sure to inform Skyfire that the rest of the strike team planned to make planet fall shortly, spurred by obviously –belated readings of Decepticon activity on the surface, coupled with Bumblebee's report that he had made contact with the Witwicky boy. Skyfire was to rendezvous with the others at Bumblebee's location; the Ark to be placed on autopilot while its remaining crew journeyed to the planet's surface, ETA, half an orn. Quickly calculating his flight path he found, taking into account the speeds available to his alt form, wind directions and speeds, and the distance he had still to travel, that his own ETA roughly matched, give or take a few breems. Right before the single closed, he sent a brief acknowledgement, and cut the channel from his end.

Calm. He had to be calm, or he'd rip Ironhide's CPU apart circuit by circuit when, not if, the fragger let his cannons override his processor. 'No killing fellow Autobots in front of the humans'. The Autobots needed human assistance to locate the Cube. A hint of weakness in the wrong place could spell disaster for them all. The humans did possess weaponry capable of penetrating cybertronian armor, if they wanted to, they could wipe the Autobots out, not that the Autobots wouldn't put up a fight if it came to that, Prime's standing orders be slagged. He would watch, and be sure the humans were not a threat to them all.

//\\

When Skyfire arrived at the rendezvous point, barely two breems after the rest of the Autobots had landed (did they have to indulge in that oh-so-subtle light show?). Introductions were being given to two humans, both adolescents by their size and the hormone levels literally wafting off their forms. Preferring to observe and to not get involved at the moment, Skyfire set down on a rooftop conveniently just above the ally Bumblebee had apparently thought was a good meeting place, (though if the yellow bot thought Skyfire was going to risk his wings down there, he had another thing coming. Ground crawlers never understood just what it meant to fly). He listened with half an audio to the introductions, (though he did smirk at Ratchet's obvious gaffe at calling attention to the pheromones the humans were emitting) and only started paying real attention when Prime started to give Sam Witwicky and his friend a summation of the war, complete with holographic show and tell. Skyfire couldn't restrain his disgust.

"Do you actually expect them to believe that simplistic piece of slag? I lived through it, and I hardly recognized your slagging story." His voice carried easily over the lip of the tall building to the ally below. When he moved closer to the edge of the roof, Skyfire enjoyed the varying reactions to his presence; from resigned silence (Prime), to annoyed grumbling (Ironhide and Ratchet), to excited greetings (Jazz and Bumblebee), and startled and scared cries (the two humans). The embarrassing (to the boy) shriek of surprise was a nice touch.

"And this is Skyfire, one of our best flyers." 'And you better believe it, Prime, Starscream wouldn't have tolerated a substandard flyer on his wing.' Skyfire thought, almost spitefully. If it had been anyone other than Prime giving the sparse introduction, Skyfire would have approved. The humans might still be immature for their species, but that didn't mean that they had to know everything. All the Autobots had received similar glossing over their backgrounds. The humans didn't need to know that Ratchet not only ran Medical, but kept the Scientists on track as well, (truly a monumental task, given how flighty Preceptor could be at times), or that Jazz headed up special operations in addition to his command responsibilities.

"Skyfire, come down here if you please." asked Prime, no doubt thinking that it would be awkward for the humans to have to continually crane their necks up at him. Truthfully, Skyfire couldn't give a slag about what might be better for the humans. Primus himself couldn't get Skyfire to crowd his wings down there. The ally was barely able to contain all 5 of the other Autobots as it was.

"Hey 'Fire!" Jazz was his usual self. "How long have you been up there?"

"Just before the Hatchet's remark on mating pheromones. Did he pass on my report?" the flyer asked his friend with a smirk.

The Special Opts leader flashed a replying smirk. In the background, almost ignored in all the byplay surrounding Skyfire's arrival, the two humans looked at each other in confusion, and then followed everyone's focus up to Skyfire. Impassive optics stared back at them. Unlike Bumblebee, he had no intention of forming a bond with the humans. All he cared about was locating the Cube, and finding Starscream. At least with the Cube, there was a clue that the Autobots could use as a lead to the All-Spark's location, the glasses once owned by Captain Witwicky.

Less than a breem later, they were at the boy's dwelling. Skyfire flew in nervous circles above the house, too keyed up to land. He could see that the other Autobots were also edgy, and for the same reasons. They were so close to finding the All-Spark; all they needed was the glasses. But behind that hope, there was also a screaming note of caution: the operation to retrieve the Cube was going much too smoothly. Something was bound to happen to mess things up, Primus and Unmaker liked chaos far too much to let things go right too often. The only question remained: when were the Decepticons going to spring their trap?

The trap wasn't sprung by the Decepticons, but by the humans. Watching from the air, Skyfire radioed reports on the human convoy's progress as the strike team trailed them to a location remote enough to ambush and retrieve their only clue to the location of the All-Spark. When everything was in position, he signaled the other Autobots by sending a null ray into the engine of the vehicle containing the two children with the glasses. After disabling the other vehicles in a similar manner, he landed in front of the startled humans, null rays powered up. He kept a null ray pointed at them as the other Autobots relieved the humans of their meager weapons. He deadened his audios to the babbling complaints as the humans poured out of their now-useless transportation; it didn't matter if the natives were not authorized to communicate with them? As Leader of the Autobots and Commander of this particular mission, worrying about legalities was Prime's job, not his.

Wait. There was another of those wireless communication links, similar to the one he had noticed and ignored back when he had watched the humans facing Scorponick. Thanks to some research he had managed to accomplish in flight, he didn't take the weak nature of the signal so lightly. Where was it coming from…there! Turning to where the femme was working to restrain the men who had briefly taken them captive on the side of the road. Using all the precision Bluestreak had drilled into him, Skyfire shot the thinnest, most focused null ray of his life at the communications device in one of the human's hands. The human yelped, dropping the device as soon as the weapon hit, too late to prevent the total destruction of the device, but also far too late to mitigate the damage its presence had caused. There was no way to tell who had been on the other end of the link, or what they might be planning. It was enough to know that due to the link, humans had a general location of the Autobot presence on earth. Slag Prime for insisting they gather in one spot, if they were spread out, they wouldn't have this situation.

From the air, Skyfire watched it all play out. From above the low-lying clouds hw watched Prime pick up the two children in one massive hand, saw how helicopter downwash ripped them from safety and how Prime was just too slow to catch them. He watched as Bumblebee broke cover to catch them, and was taken down by the humans for it. Watching the boy futilely attempting to free his guardian tore at Skyfire's spark, along with the sounds coming from Bumblebee's ruined vocalizer. The young bot was undoubtedly reliving memories of his time under Megatron's tender mercies, in addition to the anguish caused by the rough treatment he was receiving from the humans. There was nothing any of the remaining members of the strike team could do: the instant they tried to help, they'd find themselves in Bumblebee's situation themselves. They could only watch, as one of their number was taken away.

//\\

For once, Skyfire was not the only one who wanted dismember Optimus Prime on the spot after one of his speeches. Jazz looked ready to kill, and even Ratchet and Ironhide uneasy with their commander's words.

"What do you mean, we're not going to try and rescue Bumblebee?" Jazz's voice was deadly soft, almost like Sunstreaker's at his most silky-dangerous.

"Our first priority is the All-Spark. If Bumblebee must sacrifice himself to keep it out of Decepticon hands, than that is what he would want." Came the reply, but with an added note of caution. Jazz was never calm, his voice was never soft, not unless something was so deadly serious that it leaked through to his voice. Special Opts was a tightly knit section, not due to its commander's good humor, but out of necessity. Every mech in the Autobot army knew that if it were at all possible to rescue a trapped operative, he would, even if the risks outweighed the gain. He'd actually done it on more than one occasion, going into Decepticon HQ with only Hound for backup to Mirage when the invisible Autobot had been caught once or twice. Not only was Bumblebee Jazz's subordinate, but also Jazz had a soft spot for the young mech, regarding him as almost a little brother.

"Congratulations, Prime" Skyfire's sarcasm cut into the rising tension between the saboteur and the Autobot commander. "You've ascended to new heights of hypocrisy today. I thought you said just recently, is that one of the things that separate us from the Decepticons was that we never leave one of our own behind." The flyer's faceplate twisted wryly. "And abandoning Bumblebee isn't even necessary. If you've spent half a joor tracing Bumblebee's signal, you'd have realized that it's heading right for the Cube's co-ordinates. We can retrieve the Cube, at the same time we rescue-"

He cut himself off abruptly as a dark shape swooped overhead. Skyfire identified the aircraft as a B-2 stealth bomber from the database of various aircraft he'd downloaded upon arrival. But why was one flying over the heart of American airspace? Unless…

"I think that was Soundwave…" Skyfire's voice was soft, almost dazed. Realization quickly set in, blazing from the optics of every mech present. If the B-2 was in fact Soundwave, then the Decepticons already knew everything the Autobots did about the location of the All-Spark. Optimus Prime wasted no time before rapping out orders.

"Skyfire, go after Soundwave. Try to keep him from deploying his cassettes and away from the Cube of at all possible. The rest of us will travel toward the Cube's location at top speed and back you up as soon as possible. Roll out!"

//\\

By the time Skyfire had caught up with Soundwave, the communication specialist had already knocked out the power supporting the human installation that contained both the Cube and Bumblebee. Seeing the bomber's doors beginning to open, no doubt preparing to drop a rain of cassetticons on the defenseless facility. Skyfire had seen what remained of an abandon base after Frenzy, Buzzsaw, Rumble, Ravage, and Lazerbeak had finished with it. It hadn't been a pretty sight. A lucky null ray managed to seal the doors, thankfully locking Soundwave's creations within him, leaving the Decepticon 2IC to face Skyfire alone.

Skyfire knew that on paper, the odds favored him. Soundwave might have the more maneuverable alt form, but as he was not a flyer by nature the virtue of experience was Skyfire's, as the other mech had no practice fighting in the air, or even on the ground as he usually had his cassettes fight for him. Not only that, but his null rays beat whatever weapons Soundwave carried by a large margin. Despite all that, Skyfire knew better than to relax his guard. On the rare occasions Soundwave was forced to fight on his own, he'd come out on top every time, not because he was better than his opponents but because of his skill in picking an opponent's plan of attack right out of his CPU via his innate telepathy.

So. While he both out powered and out skilled Soundwave, the Decepticon could pick all of his weaknesses, fighting style, and all his strategies right out of his CPU. This might actually be fun….

He dove and dodged around Soundwave, taking potshots with his null rays, all the while trying not to think, letting his instincts and experience direct him when to dodge and where to fire. He was so involved in the aerial battle, that he almost didn't notice a convoy of military vehicles, lead by a flashy yellow Camaro speed out of the access tunnel. A few instances later, two flying shapes followed the out-of-sight convoy. Skyfire had barely any time to recognize the Olympic-class battle curser as Megatron, before the achingly familiar lines of a tetrahedron jet filled his optics and caused his spark to stutter in its chamber.

"Starscream…"

Owari

Till chapter 4

Cliffhanger!!!! Sorry that you all had to wait so long for me to get this out. I'd swear that it didn't want to be typed and was actively resisting my efforts. Consider this my Christmas gift to you all.

As an aside, I'm sorry if I seem to be bashing Optimus in this chapter. I guess the reason I have Skyfire so bitter is that at heart (or should that be at spark) Skyfire is an idealist, one who's seen his ideals betrayed. I believe that Starscream was one too, and the reason he kept going after Megatron was that he couldn't forgive Megatron for forgetting what the Decepticons originally stood for. The only reason that Skyfire isn't pointing null rays at Prime every chance he gets, is that Skyfire is too low in the Autobot chain of command to expect his opinions to carry much weight, unlike Screamer who if any of plots succeeded he'd have command of the Decepticons. All Skyfire can do, is remind Optimus that he is not a god, that not all the Autobots follow him blindly. I believe that Optimus is a good leader, but power goes to the head of everyone, and blind obedience is a heady thing. By his constant dissatisfaction and sarcasm, Skyfire is exhibiting a restraining influence on Prime, of only to remind him that by himself, he is nothing special.

Yes, Skyfire did meet up with Starscream. Next chapter the two of them will have a long talk over exactly how Skyfire has changed over the war, and if they still have a future together. Till next time!!! Now, on to working on my other project…


	4. Chapter 4

Cloudy Skies 4

//\\

A full month after the battle for the All-Spark found Skyfire watching the sun rise from atop one on the mountain peaks relatively close to where the Cube had been concealed. It was a new dawn, for this planet, and for the Autobot cause as well.

Megatron was gone for good, and the Cube as well. The boy, Sam Witwicky, and managed to shove it into the Decepticon warlord's spark, overloading it so that both were destroyed. All those Decepticons who had come to Earth (as the humans called their planet) were destroyed, with the possible exception of Soundwave. No one had seen the Communications specialist after Skyfire's aerial skirmish, and while it was possible that he'd inflicted fatal damage, it was much more likely that his null rays had been able to short out enough systems for the telepathic mech to decide that entering into a full-out battle zone at less than prime conditions and with his cassetticons still trapped within him was nothing short of suicide.

Skyfire didn't fool himself into thinking that the war was over, even though all the causes that both sides had fought for were dead. The Senate had fallen hundreds of vorns ago, Cybertron was failing, and its' one hope for survival was now gone for good. By now, nothing mattered to either side but the act of fighting, battle lines so firmly established, that one side might as well be separated by a chasm of light-years, instead of ideological differences. There was no future for his species save endless war until they were completely extinct.

How ironic was that, to clearly see the end of his race's existence, just as they had found a new world for them to live on. And they were staying. The entire Command Team was in agreement, the message to gather at their new location sent into the void where Prowl was waiting with the rest of the Autobot army. He'd protested when he'd heard of the decision, but the decision did not belong to him. He had been given his orders, and he would obey them.

Not to mention, there was Starscream to consider. Ratchet had to force him into stasis to calm him down when he'd learned what had gone on in Sector 7, and to even imagine that Starscream had been studied and experimented on like those mini-bots the humans had created using the Cube's energy. And that was _after_ the irate medic had gone crazy over the various serious dings and dents the entire strike force had accumulated. Bumblebee's legs had been savaged by both Megatron's fusion cannon, and falling debris. Jazz had narrowly escaped being torn in half, but had torn and strained connections in so many places that it had taken the medic half an orn to simply catalogue the damage. Even Optimus Prime had spent time in the makeshift medbay under the far-from-tender mercies of the increasingly enraged Ratchet. The Autobot leader had not only been nearly defeated by Megatron, but had actually imitated the twins and tried his hand at some Jet Judo with the Decepticon warlord. Not to mention Skyfire's own injuries from his clashes with Blackout and Soundwave. Ironhide was the only one who had escaped relatively uninjured though that didn't count several serious dents that Ratchet was saving until later to repair.

Skyfire reflected that he shouldn't be simply sitting on a mountaintop doing nothing. There was so much to do and to organize, but Skyfire's spark couldn't latch on to something, even if it was simply to keep busy. Of course, there were some jobs that he simply wasn't suited for, such as negotiating with the human governments for what resources that the Autobots could use and were available. That was Prime's job, his and Jazz's. They were welcome to it, responsibilities of leadership and all that slag. He had as much place at the negotiating table as Ironhide, though if they were included, it would likely make things go a bit faster. Skyfire knew from experience that a null ray (or a cannon) in the right place could make things go much quicker than they otherwise would have gone.

Actually, now that he was thinking about that, what use _did_ he have anymore? His skills in battle were obsolete at the moment, and given that the Autobots barely had a medbay, a proper lab was out of the question. He'd already flown endless patrols around the area where the Autobots had been given temporary accommodation, so many that if he had to fly just one more in the next few orns he would scream. And it's not as if he would lower himself to taking on a fleshy partner like Bumblebee or Ironhide. A human in his cockpit, the very thought was repulsive. He'd already had as much of that as he could stand.

Above him, the last star flashed brightly and winked out, causing Skyfire to involuntarily flinch. Primus take it to the Pit, he was trying to avoid thinking about Starscream! He didn't want to think about how he'd been avoiding his bondmate ever since seeing him escape from Sector 7 at Megatron's thrusters. Unmaker take it, he'd been trying not to _think_ about the seeker ever since the surprise at seeing Starscream had allowed Soundwave that free cheap shot. Thank the Pit the Communication specialist's weapons were so weak. After recovering from that shot, Skyfire had seen Megatron take his chance to get away and go after the Cube, and had piled on the speed to catch the faster tyrant, arriving just in time to catch him with a null ray to one forearm and save Jazz. There hadn't been time to think about the seeker during the battle, and afterward, the Hatchet had taken him in hand. It had been easier to concentrate on the wrench throwing and grumbling of the medic, than on the fears and hopes crowding his processor. Much better to react to the Hatchet, or joke with Jazz, than think about Starscream.

Thank Primus the others didn't know Starscream was his bondmate. Ratchet suspected, given the combination that he knew his bondmate had been lost, the tantrum he'd thrown at learning Starscream's fate with Sector 7 (just thinking about them make his optics briefly flash red) and the fact that his self-repair systems were suddenly functioning at full capacity again, after vorns of slowly degrading, left little to doubt in the medic's mind. However, Ratchet never asked Skyfire directly, so he hadn't lied by keeping the knowledge safe. But the others shouldn't know: apart from that one time with Prowl, or getting overcharged with the twins that time, he hadn't told the Autobots that he was bonded. Oh, some of them did know that he'd lost his research partner to ice before the war, but as far as he didn't say differently, most assumed the relationship to be purely professional. So that meant that Jazz didn't mean anything personal when Skyfire had come across him and Starscream talking oh-so-intimately together not 2 breems ago, but try telling that to the flood of jealousy that had overwhelmed his processor and made him leave the base before he finished what Megatron had started with the saboteur. Oh he knew that Jazz was naturally friendly, even discounting his job as the temporary 2IC of determining the loyalties of strange mechs. He knew all that, and it hadn't kept him from running like a scared sparkling at the sight of his bondmate talking to another mech.

Why in all the layers of the Pit had Starscream chosen to bond with him of all mechs. Why had the seeker, who could have chosen anyone, really, settled with one who was far too prone to brooding, too idealistic to ever be comfortable with a cause, too intelligent to keep from thinking himself into a rut, too stubborn to quit once he had committed himself to something, and had far too many other faults to even count? Why had a beautiful, brilliant, graceful, blindingly fast seeker like Starscream chosen him?

And did Starscream even know he was on the planet? It wouldn't have surprised Skyfire to learn that his bondmate thought he was elsewhere. After all, he'd avoided his bondmate ever since he'd found him. Not to mention, he looked nothing like the Skyfire that had previously been to this planet. The last time Starscream had seen him, the last time they had truly been together, his alt-mode had been a valkyrie class exploration shuttle, not a human V-22 osprey. His coloring had also changed over the vorns of war, where once he'd been a bright white with red highlights, now he was a neutral grey whose few highlights were a pale blue. Only his size and optics remained the same, and that wasn't much on which to base a positive identification.

He was the very definition of pathetic. All those long vorns of war, the one thing that had allowed him to keep moving was the thought of seeing Starscream again. And now that his bondmate had been found, what did he do? Run away with his wings tucked.

The rising sun glinted on a patch of metal, causing Skyfire's systems to freeze. That…couldn't be who he thought it was. It was. Within the breem the stray patch of metal had resolved itself out of the glare enough to be readily identifiable as an F-22 raptor. Despite his apprehension at the coming conversation (read: fight), something in him gloried in seeing his bondmate in the air. Starscream had always been so sure in flight, always pulling stunts that even other seekers shied away from attempting. A subtle grin curved his face, remembering the hotshot seekers and flyers that had dared to attempt to best Starscream in the air, nearly all of them had ended up falling ignobly from the skies, or lagging so far behind that it was no longer funny, when his love piled on the speed and left the pitiful challengers gasping on his fumes. The grin faded as his mind reminded him of why his partner was there. He was not looking forward to this.

//\\

Starscream couldn't tear his optics away from the unmoving bulk of his bondmate. Skyfire, oh, he'd wanted to believe that the mech fighting the impressive-looking dogfight a month ago had been his partner, but even with Jazz's encouragement, had begun to have doubts about the flyer's identity when Skyfire had consistently ignored him. True, the coloring of the mech hadn't matched with his memories, nor the obviously new alt-mode, but his spark had sung at the sight of the flyer, and that had only happened for one mech, and one mech alone. Looking at him now, Starscream couldn't believe that he'd allowed that nagging little voice at the back of his processor to almost convince him that Skyfire wasn't on the planet.

But why had the flyer been shutting him out? And what had happened to him to turn him into the icy, cold, and irritable mech of Jazz's stories? Frankly, when he'd asked the silver Autobot if he knew his bondmate, the picture Jazz had painted with words hadn't seemed like Skyfire at all. Distant from his colleagues? The Skyfire he'd known had been friendly; Primus knew that the flyer had made the first move in their relationship, asking that he be assigned to be the flyer's exploration partner after seeing the more vicious bullies of the Science Center picking on him in the halls. Problems with Autobot High Command? Skyfire had never had a problem with authority, not that he could ever remember. _He _sometimes did, but only when the Expedition Council were being so moronic that their processor's were so deep in slag that their cranial units were buried up their afts. The only things that Jazz had said that sounded remotely like Skyfire, was the overfull work schedule which included, combat rotation (of all the slag?), a patrol schedule, lab work, and something else Jazz wasn't telling. Much as he resented being cut off from any information about Skyfire, Starscream intellectually understood why Jazz was being cagey with the details. He wasn't an Autobot, and apparently the Olympic battlecruiser he'd followed out of the underground cavern (Sector 7 if he'd heard correctly), had been the leader of the Autobots opposing faction. They weren't taking chances with his loyalties.

'Opposing faction'. If he hadn't been in alt-mode, he would have shaken his head. How could he have missed so much? When he'd left Cybertron, the planet had been at peace, sure there had been murmurings of an energy crisis, but the whole idea behind his and Skyfire's last expedition, had been to search out alternative sources of energy that could be converted into energon. There hadn't even been the faintest rumbles of discontent when he'd left, and he was the one who paid attention to the latest news. Primus knew how Skyfire could get wrapped up in lab work and simply tune everything else out. That reminded him of when he'd asked Jazz if anyone routinely checked in on Skyfire to make sure he wasn't overworking himself with that exhausting schedule his bondmate had managed to trap himself into. The other mech had laughed at the thought. Sure, he knew that Skyfire could get testy if interrupted in his concentration, but _firing weapons_ at mechs to get them to leave him alone? Frankly, he was having trouble even _imagining_ the flyer with weapons. When he'd known him, Skyfire had been a pacifist.

Only…, he'd _seen_ his bondmate with weapons, and not only that, using them in a very professional manner to boot, a mere human month ago. For a moment, his CPU was bombarded with two very conflicting images: the Skyfire he had known, and the Skyfire in Jazz's stories, the one that had not only been fighting, but had been _winning_ a dogfight against what had looked to be a tough opponent. Did he really_ know_ Skyfire anymore…?

Enough with the brooding. It was time to pry some answers to the questions crowding his processor out of his bondmate. Skyfire had had long enough to brood, and try to think his way out of a mental box. The flyer should have remembered that he needed help to find the way out once he'd thought himself into a rut.

There wasn't room for a proper landing on the mountain ridge the flyer had chosen, so Starscream transformed back to his standard form, before walking up behind his brooding bondmate. The flyer didn't twitch, though he must have known that Starscream was coming up behind him. The seeker halted just behind his bondmate, close enough to put out a hand and touch Skyfire's wings. "Sky," he said, hating the way his voice came out, uncertain and almost vulnerable, completely unlike the confidant tone that was his normal way of speaking. "Why have you been shutting me out like this?"

No answer. Not even any reaction. "Slag it Skyfire!" Starscream burst out. "Do you hate me now or something? I don't know what I did to make you avoid me like this, but whatever I did, I'm sorry!"

//\\

Something twisted inside Skyfire's spark at Starscream's words. His bondmate thought that he, Skyfire, hated him, and that was why he was distancing himself from the seeker. That couldn't be farther from the truth. Couldn't Starscream see that it was for his own good that he stay away from him? He was stained by vorns of war, no longer fit to associate with someone who had been kept from the long bloody conflict. No, of course Starscream wouldn't see that. The seeker had always been far to idealistic for his own good.

And he had been unfair to his bondmate. He could see now what his actions had looked like to the other half of his spark. Primus take it to the Pit, couldn't he do anything right?

And the name the seeker had used. No one called him "Sky", if anyone wanted to call him by a nickname, they called him "'Fire". "Sky", was Starscream's personal name for him, the one that was rarely uttered even when the two of them were alone in the lab. He couldn't leave his bondmate like this, he couldn't, and at the same time would never be able to share what exactly had happened to him that had made himself no longer pure enough to remain in Starscream's presence.

"It's not something you did.." Skyfire wasn't even sure he had spoken until he heard the words leave his vocalize. He hated this, hated the feelings of inadequacy that swamped his spark and stifled his connection to Starscream's pure, unsullied blaze.

"Then _why_, Skyfire! Make me _understand_. Why have you been shutting me out?" oh Primus, here was Starscream's pleading voice, the one the seeker hated to use, that grated on his bondmate's proud spark, and added to the torment of the moment.

_Slag this_. He wasn't going to stay here. He needed to fly, to get clean air under his wings, to be anywhere on this forsaken mudball of a planet that housed his worst nightmares and was now trapped on by the Autobot chain of command that wasn't this particular spot. He got to his feet, impatient to be off, and stopped, feeling a delicate hand lightly touch his left wing, right in the spot next to the flaps that made his spark melt, every single time. That wasn't _fair_. Starscream _knew_ it was his weakness, being touched there. While flyer's and seekers both shared extremely sensitive wings as part of their design structure, the sensitivity of that spot was one of the quirks that was unique to Skyfire. And only Starscream knew all of his weak points, just like he knew all of Starscream's. Just one of the many consequences of bonding.

"I can't…."

"Can't _what?_ Stay? Leave? Be my bondmate anymore? Take your pick Skyfire! Make up your _mind._ _Tell me what's going on!_" Starscream was angry, and had every right to be. Something shattered in Skyfire in the face of his bondmate's well-deserved anger.

"…I… I can't..shut you out. Not completely. I've tried, if only to keep from being overwhelmed by the massive, gaping hole in my spark that was with me every breem, every _joor_ I was without you, but I…, _I_ _never could shut you out_! I…" Skyfire trailed off as he felt himself begin to shake as each tortured syllable, until he was visibly shuddering, shaking so hard that he had to sit down again or risk his stabilizers giving out on him again. Apparently his systems were still fragile thanks to the remaining bondshock he had yet to overcome. He's hated the procedure to fix them from the first, likely because they would always be linked to that first horrible orn in Ratchet's medbay, when he'd realized that Starscream was still alive. He shivered as he recalled Ratchet's innocent, devastating question:"how do I find your bondmate."

//\\

Starscream stared at Skyfire in naked shock. Skyfire was literally _shaking_ with emotion, something he had never seen his bondmate or any flyer do before. Flyers were supposed to be more emotionally solid than their more volatile seeker cousins. He couldn't count the number of times when it had been Skyfire's unflappability that had saved their afts, either in the field like when he'd panicked after accidently flying into an asteroid field and gotten an acute case of claustrophobia, or back in the labs such as when that power coupling experiment they'd done together had blown and damaged his wings, or even in relatively safe surroundings, such as the Expedition Council chamber, when Skyfire's patience and soothing nature had saved their funding and allowed him to smooth and flatter the Council into giving them the assignments that were, if not their first choice, at least not _too_ dangerous for survival. He knew for a fact that the Council had tried to get rid of him in just that way on a number of occasions, and only Skyfire had managed to put a stop to that. Of course, he never knew about those instances when they'd happened, only after the fact and on at least 3 of those times had been the impetus for one of their rare fights.

And for calm, level-headed Skyfire to be shaking with emotion, it whatever was bothering him must have been _really_ bad. For the first time since he had awoken, Starscream really thought about the time that had passed since he crashed. The war had been going on for about 1000 vorns according to Jazz. Of course, Jazz had told him that he was counting from where open battles had begun, so, 1000 vorns, added to that however long hostilities had been simmering before fighting had erupted, which he didn't know, he would have to ask Jazz for more accurate data. Anyway, he was getting off topic. There hadn't been the slightest whisper of hostilities before he and Skyfire had left Cybertron, so Skyfire had been alone…. Skyfire had been _alone_, _completely alone_, the whole length of the war, from the first stirrings of hostilities, to now.

Starscream wanted to curse. How _could_ he have forgotten? This wasn't like a trine, which could be broken up and reformed as many times as needed, this was a _bond_ they were talking about. No bond was entered into lightly, because once bonded, the very sparks were entwined. And not only was it a bond, but it wasn't a sibling, gestalt, or even a semi-mythical twin bond they were talking about either, but a spark bond. Spark bonds needed contact, needed the other partner close in order to maintain spark coherence. They needed to stay together, needed closeness almost more than energon. While siblings had a connection, they could be separated with no trouble at all. Gestalts stayed together all the time, and yes, they needed a connection in order to link, and yes, if a member of the gestalt died the whole gestalt would be crippled, but they could and would move on, eventually. He didn't know much about twins, they were so rare that he had never met one, but he'd heard that they could be separated, at least distance wise, for long periods of time, sure they might have some serious mental problems when they were reunited, but distance alone couldn't kill them. The only thing that would kill them was if one twin was killed by a third party.

Looking at Skyfire's miserable frame, Starscream was struck by the horrible knowledge that Skyfire should be _dead_. He hated the thought, but looking at those drooping wings, the way Skyfire cradled his helm in his hands, reminded him of those old romantic tales he'd once dismissed as nonsense, the ones that said that if one member of a spark bond was killed, or was separated from their partner too long, sooner or later the survivor would die. Skyfire could have _died,_ should have _died,_ and he would have never known, simply because he would never have woken up and seen him again.

And not only had they been separated, Skyfire had been in the middle of a war, something utterly alien to his nature. The last time Starscream had seen his bondmate, the flyer hadn't been able to _contemplate_ fighting. It was a long way from that place to being able to handle yourself in a professional dogfight. He'd know; all seekers were given basic air-combat training when they were assigned into trines, and he could still remember the mental _shift _that had to occur for even a mock-battle. Skyfire hadn't been trained to make that shift, and would have had to find it on the fly, and making that shift for the first time was a _very_ unsettling experience, even when you were coached through it. He'd had to be coached out of it as well, and had found that the combat-buzz to be so eerily addicting that it could have been easy to get lost in it. A thought froze his CPU for a moment, then he relaxed a fraction. He'd thought for a moment that Skyfire hadn't come out of battle mode; that he was locked in it, but he should have known better. You couldn't guilt-trip yourself when your optics could only see enemy and ally.

And now, now that they were reunited, Skyfire couldn't allow himself to get close again, because freezing his spark had been the only way to survive the long vorns of loneliness. Primus, he was worse off than he, Starscream had been all those years ago, after his trine had been shot out under him, and he had joined the Science Academy, trying to find a place for himself that didn't remind him of his old trinemates, and found bullies determined to keep seekers in Vos and out of their hallowed halls in any way possible. Skyfire had saved him from doing something that would have resulted in his expulsion and a ban from ever joining a trine again, now it was his turn to save Skyfire from getting the both of them killed just when they had found each other again.

"It's alright Skyfire." He said in as gentle voice as he could manage. Primus, he really wasn't good at this at all. He'd always known that he'd never been cut out for the "sappy stuff" and he'd once sneeringly called it. It didn't matter; Skyfire needed it, needed a gentle touch after so many vorns of war. The flyer needed that touch to return him to a place that Starscream could reach, and from there, talk to him and be able to find that first instance of understanding. He moved closer to his miserable bondmate, hands pressed against the flyer's straight wings. "I'm here now."

Owari

Till chapter 5

I know!!! You've been waiting forever for this to update, and I'm soo sorry!!! And I know I said that chapter 4 would be the last chapter, but my rewrite generated so much more material, that I couldn't squeeze it all in, without spoiling the flow of the story. Not to mention that writer's block has hit me hard on this, to the point that I simply could not work on this story two days in a row, no matter how hard I tried. I hope that none of you hate me for abandoning this to work on my Final Fantasy VIII story. As a matter of fact, I'm having writer's block there as well, so I decided to try and direct my creative flow here. It… didn't entirely work.

I have no idea when chapter 5 will come out, none whatsoever. Until then, thanks for hanging with me on this horrendously long wait. I know that you would be perfectly within your rights to not review this after testing your patience this long, and I would imagine that some of my readers would have given up on following it after the long wait, but, hang in there. This story won't be abandoned until the complete marker is attached to it.

See you all in chapter 5


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